OX 1>RA YMR A3 A VORM OFPllY^lCAl. MXtillG Y. 371 



competence. To the human mind belongs the faculty of 

 enlarging arid diminishing, of distorting and combining, 

 indefinitely, the objects revealed by the senses. It can 

 imagine a mouse as large as an elephant, an elephant .-.; 

 large as a mountain, and a mountain as high as the stairs. 

 It can separate congruities aud unite incongruities. We 

 see a fish and we see a woman; we can drop one half 01 

 each, and unite in idea the other two halves to a mermaid. 

 We see a horse and we see a man; we are able to drop one 

 half of each, and unite the other two halves to a centaur. 

 Thus also the pictorial representations of the Deity, the 

 bodies and wings of cherubs and seraphs, the hoofs, horns, 

 and tail of the evil one, the joys of the blessed, and the 

 torments of the damned, have been elaborated from ma- 

 terials furnished to the imagination by the senses. It 

 behoves you and me to take care that our notions of the 

 Power which rules the universe are not mere fanciful or 

 ignorant enlargements of human power. The capabilities 

 of what you call your reason are not denied. By the exer- 

 cise of the faculty here adverted to, you can picture to 

 yourself a Being able and willing to do any and every con- 

 ceivable thing. You are right in saying that in opposition 

 to this power science is of no avail that it is "a weapon 

 of air." The man of science, however, while accepting 

 the figure, would probably reverse its application, thinking 

 it is not science which is here the thing of air, but thai 

 unsubstantial pageant of the imagination to which .the 

 solidity of science is opposed. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



ON PRAYER AS A FORM OF PHYSICAL ENERGY. 



Prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness. 

 EMERSON. 



THE EDITOR of the Contemporary Review is liberal 

 enough to grant me space for some remarks uponasubjcei . 

 which, though my relation to it was simply that of ,-, 

 vehicle of transmission, has brought down upon me a tor.- 

 siderabie amount of animadversion. 



It may be interesting to some of my readers if I glance 

 at a few cases illustrative of the history of the human 



